Entities often generate and use data that is important in some way to their operations. This data can include, for example, business data, financial data, and personnel data. If this data were lost or compromised, the entity may realize significant adverse financial and other consequences. Accordingly, many entities have chosen to back up some or all of their data so that in the event of a natural disaster, unauthorized access, or other events, the entity can recover any data that was lost or compromised, and then restore that data to one or more locations, machines and/or environments.
However, the configuration of some backup and storage environments can give rise to various problems. Consider the hypothetical example of an environment that may include one or more clients that cooperate with a backup server to create backups of client data for storage and later restoration. In this example, a storage server can also be provided that communicates with the backup server, and one or more of the clients in some instances. The storage server can be in a different network than the clients and backup server.
As a result of the use of multiple networks, each of which includes various respective entities that must interface with entities within, and outside, their network, problems such as backup failures and slow checkpoint processes can arise. A related problem is that it can be difficult to determine how the backup and storage environment is performing as a whole. For example, an administrator may not have access to network connectivity and throughput information among the various entities in the environment that would alert the administrator to conditions such as backup failures and slow checkpoint processes.
In light of problems such as those noted above, and/or others, it would be useful to include a network diagnostic tool that can provide an administrator with information concerning network performance. As well, it would be useful to be able to embed the network diagnostic tool in a backup client and associated backup server. It would also be useful for the network diagnostic tool to gather and provide information concerning parameters such as communication bandwidth between the backup client and entities it communicates with, such as a backup server and a storage server. Finally, it would be useful to for the network diagnostic to gather and provide information concerning communication bandwidth between a backup server and a storage server.